New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On July 29, Joe Lovano will add the 25th album to his remarkable Blue Note catalog with the release of Classic! Live At Newport. The pre-order for the album launched today on iTunes along with the release of the lead track "
Big Ben" which can be streamed on our exclusive Apple
Music playlist Blue Note Live! Recorded on August 14, 2005 at the Newport Jazz Festival, the album captures the Joe Lovano Quartet featuring a then 87-year-old piano legend Hank Jones, as well as bassist
George Mraz, and drummer Lewis Nash. Classic! is dedicated to the memory of both Jones and longtime Blue Note president Bruce Lundvall. The set was recorded, mixed and mastered by Lundvall's son Kurt Lundvall, and the album's cover features a painting by Lovano's wife Judi Silvano.
Classic! will be released on the eve of the 2016 Newport Jazz Festival at which Lovano will be performing with guitarist John Scofield, reuniting another quartet that made a series of memorable Blue Note albums in the early 1990s. Next week Lovano will also be reprising his acclaimed 1995 album Quartets: Live At The Village Vanguard with a stint at the famed club with trumpeter Tom Harrell, bassist Anthony Cox, and drummer Billy Hart from July 19-24. Quartets: Live At The Village Vanguard was recently reissued on vinyl as part of the Blue Note Records 75th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue Series.
Lovano first assembled his quartet with Jones, Mraz and drummer Paul Motian for the stunning 2004 ballads album I'm All For You. The album was so well received that the quartet returned to the studio to record the album Joyous Encounter, which was released in May 2005. That summer Lovano took his working quartet (which replaced Motian with Nash on drums) on a European tour during which the band developed an even deeper rapport before returning to the U.S. to perform at Newport. "With Lewis the music took on a much more hard-hitting approach and I felt a need to record us live at Newport, even though I knew it couldn't be released at the time," explains Lovano.
"This was truly my Classic Quartet in every sense of the term," Lovano says. "Hank Jones was clearly one of the modern jazz geniuses of all time and he elevated us all with his imagination and inspiration. His accompaniment and solos were full of love, poetry and searching; he made you feel so good all the time. I played with Hank from when he was in his early 80's through his 90th year and liked to say he was always fresh as a daisy. I treasured our friendship and collaborations and learned so much from him. His wisdom and knowledge about music and life, his humor, wit, passion and love will always inspire and be with me."
Classic! Live At Newport captures the quartet's entire 6-song set, which opened with the swaggering Lovano blues "
Big Ben" and featured songs drawn from the band's studio albums including 2 songs written by Hank's brother Thad Jones ("Don't Ever Leave Me" and "Kids Are Pretty People") before closing with a rollicking performance of
Oliver Nelson's "Six and Four" to wild applause.
Lovano and Jones continued their fruitful collaboration with the 2007 duo album Kids: Live at Dizzy's Club. Jones passed away in 2010 at the age of 91.
